Is Kate Upton Becoming the Standard in Modeling?

Model-of-the-moment Kate Upton is fueling the controversy over the size standards in the modeling industry. Since landing the much coveted 2012 Swimsuit Issue of Sports Illustrated, her stock has gone up, landing her not only more commercial gigs but high fashion ones. She even received the stamp of approval from Anna Wintour when she appeared in the July issue of Vogue. So the question becomes, is waif-chic out for good?

Hardly, since high fashion labels still need rail thin models to show clothes on the runway. But good news for curvier models like Upton and Brooklyn Decker is that women with the buying power want to see clothes on ‘normal looking’ girls – in modeling standards of course – and men want to see girls with more meat on their bones. Yay for us regular girls!

We have men’s magazines like GQ and Sports Illustrated to thank for the increased popularity and acceptance of healthier and curvier models. Showcasing them not just on covers but showing off their personalities in behind the scenes videos has made these women even more likeable and more accepted. Who could forget a bikini-clad Upton’s rendition of the Dougie during the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit shoot?

“I look for a healthy body with curves in all the right places. Another huge factor is personality. The more recognizable the model, the better,” says GQ bookings director Richard Blandino. “People are really interested in what happens behind the scenes at a photo shoot – who the models are and what they are like. In this new digital age, the more the model has to talk about, the better.”

Kate Moss, Karlie Kloss and Giselle aren’t going anywhere but the good news is that we’ll be seeing more normal looking models in campaigns and magazines. So even though waif-like glamazons will still strut on the high-fashion runways, more commercial models like Upton are making the crossover successfully.

Makeda Saggau-Sackey is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Glamazon Diaries, which serves as a daily source of fashion news, style advice and a round-up of the most exclusive celebrity events in New York City and Washington, DC. She is also the editor-in-chief of Duchess of Cambridge Style, an online fashion community devoted to chronicling what the former Kate Middleton wears, events she attends and where to get her looks.